Ghostwriters harm academic performance performance

Suspected ghostwriters are investigated by the plainclothes policemen in Jinan, capital of Shandong province, June 5, 2014. [Photo/CFP]

With the Spring Festival holiday at an end, many students, especially high school students, are paying online "ghostwriters" to finish their holiday homework. The market demand is so huge that the price of ghostwriting has risen by ten times in some schools. Comments:

The "ghostwriting" market exists and has gained popularity for a variety of reasons. On the one hand, a lot of school assignments are just repeated work that lacks the need for creativity. On the other hand, many students fail to see the ultimate purpose of doing homework, instead they simply take it as a compulsory task required by their teachers. To end this state of affairs, both schools and parents should help the students understand that to complete assignments is prerequisite to seeking knowledge independently.

Zong Chunshan, director of the Beijing Legal and Psychological Counseling Service Center for Juveniles, Feb 26

At bottom, it is not that students refuse to do their homework. The key to ease such reluctance lies very much in the assignments' attractiveness, in other words, whether they can make students more motivated to do the work. School homework should never be some boring handwriting job that involves little intelligence. Otherwise, the absurd emergence of "homework ghostwriters" will continue.

zynews.com, Feb 26

To clear out the online "ghostwriting" businesses, educational departments and schools at all levels in the country have to work harder to "tailor" specific assignments for students, so as to fit the students' learning progress and psychology in vacation.

nen.com.cn, Feb 26